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Cypress Park and Recreation Center 981 George West Engram Boulevard Created in 1929, Cypress Street Park, which included Kelly
Field, gained considerable attention in 1946 as a spring training
practice field for the Montreal Royals, a minor league team for the
Brooklyn Dodgers. On March 17, Jackie Robinson, a new member of the
Royals, integrated professional baseball in a game at City Island
Ballpark between the Royals and the Dodgers. But throughout that spring,
the Royals and the Dodgers practiced at Kelly Field, much to the
delight of the neighborhood’s black residents.

In 1949, a recreation hall was built at Cypress Street Park.
Designed as an auditorium for Daytona Beach’s African-American
community, the city built the Cypress Street Recreation Center so that
the new Peabody Auditorium, located on the beachside, could be reserved
for whites. At that time, southern communities adhered to the “separate
by equal” doctrine established by the Supreme Court in 1896 – separate
facilities for blacks and whites were permitted as long as they were
equal. However, when Peabody Auditorium opened in 1949, a black
organization, the West Side Business and Professional Men’s Association,
sued the city demanding that blacks be admitted, pointing out that
Cypress Street Recreation Center contained half the seating and cost
one-tenth as much to build as Peabody. In 1952, the federal district
court in Jacksonville, Florida, ruled that blacks had to be admitted to
public performances at Peabody Auditorium.